Domestic market potential for tree products from farms and rural communities: Experience from Cameroon

This publication summarizes the results of research carried out by NRI in Cameroon during 1995-96 on the domestic market potential for tree products from farms and rural communities. The study arose from concern that agroforestry projects, which generally aim to reduce the pressure on natural forests by planting trees on farmland, were inadequately addressing the associated marketing needs. As a consequence, many of the projects were failing. The research reported here sought to characterize the markets for non-timber tree products (NTTPs) and highlight constraints to the development of markets for traditional and emerging NTTPs. The research in Cameroon was paralleled by a study in the Brazilian Amazon carried out by IFPRI; ODA provided funding for both studies. The work began with an inventory of products and subsequent identification of marketing chains. Four products were selected as case studies and were used to explore issues relating to valued added, domestication and the role of NTTPs as sources of income. The marketing of the four products was well-established and appeared to be relatively competitive, in spite of some concerns over lack of information at farmer level. There was growing demand for the products, apparently matched by increasing supply. The wholesalers, who source the products in the forest fringe communities and sell them on to retailers, were the most dynamic links in the marketing chains. The impetus to domesticate NTTPs seemed always to be farmer-driven, and occurred when a product important for subsistence and income needs was not readily available from the forest. However, the role of NTTPs within the farming system is important; they must fit into a complex strategy which includes seasonal smoothing of income, production and labour needs. Also, tree-planting is a long-term investment which is unlikely to be undertaken if land tenure is insecure. In conclusion, areas are highlighted for future research. These include: technical aspects of cultivation, processing and storage; identification of products which will be in greater demand as a result of urbanization; the role of NTTPs in the livelihood strategies of particularly vulnerable groups (including the landless) in the forest fringe communities

Scalar Decay in Chaotic Mixing

I review the local theory of mixing, which focuses on infinitesimal blobs of scalar being advected and stretched by a random velocity field. An advantage of this theory is that it provides elegant analytical results. A disadvantage is that it is highly idealised. Nevertheless, it provides insight into the mechanism of chaotic mixing and the effect of random fluctuations on the rate of decay of the concentration field of a passive scalar.Comment: 35 pages, 15 figures. Springer-Verlag conference style svmult.cls (included). Published in "Transport in Geophysical Flows: Ten Years After," Proceedings of the Grand Combin Summer School, 14-24 June 2004, Valle d'Aosta, Italy. Fixed some typo

Western Australian public opinions of a minimum pricing policy for alcohol: study protocol

Background: Excessive alcohol consumption has significant adverse economic, social, and health outcomes. Recent estimates suggest that the annual economic costs of alcohol in Australia are up to AUD $36 billion. Policies influencing price have been demonstrated to be very effective in reducing alcohol consumption and alcohol-related harms. Interest in minimum pricing has gained traction in recent years. However, there has been little research investigating the level of support for the public interest case of minimum pricing in Australia. Objective: This article describes protocol for a study exploring Western Australian (WA) public knowledge, understanding, and reaction to a proposed minimum price policy per standard drink. Methods: The study will employ a qualitative methodological design. Participants will be recruited from a wide variety of backgrounds, including ethnic minorities, blue and white collar workers, unemployed, students, and elderly/retired populations to participate in focus groups. Focus group participants will be asked about their knowledge of, and initial reactions to, the proposed policy and encouraged to discuss how such a proposal may affect their own alcohol use and alcohol consumption at the population level. Participants will also be asked to discuss potential avenues for increasing acceptability of the policy. The focus groups will adopt a semi-structured, open-ended approach guided by a question schedule. The schedule will be based on feedback from pilot samples, previous research, and a steering group comprising experts in alcohol policy and pricing. Results: The study is expected to take approximately 14 months to complete. Conclusions: The findings will be of considerable interest and relevance to government officials, policy makers, researchers, advocacy groups, alcohol retail and licensed establishments and organizations, city and town planners, police, and other stakeholder organizations

Global meteorological influences on the record UK rainfall of winter 2013-14

The UK experienced record average rainfall in winter 2013–14, leading to widespread and prolonged flooding. The immediate cause of this exceptional rainfall was a very strong and persistent cyclonic atmospheric circulation over the North East Atlantic Ocean. This was related to a very strong North Atlantic jet stream which resulted in numerous damaging wind storms. These exceptional meteorological conditions have led to renewed questions about whether anthropogenic climate change is noticeably influencing extreme weather. The regional weather pattern responsible for the extreme UK winter coincided with highly anomalous conditions across the globe. We assess the contributions from various possible remote forcing regions using sets of ocean–atmosphere model relaxation experiments, where winds and temperatures are constrained to be similar to those observed in winter 2013–14 within specified atmospheric domains. We find that influences from the tropics were likely to have played a significant role in the development of the unusual extra-tropical circulation, including a role for the tropical Atlantic sector. Additionally, a stronger and more stable stratospheric polar vortex, likely associated with a strong westerly phase of the stratospheric Quasi-Biennial Oscillation (QBO), appears to have contributed to the extreme conditions. While intrinsic climatic variability clearly has the largest effect on the generation of extremes, results from an analysis which segregates circulation-related and residual rainfall variability suggest that emerging climate change signals made a secondary contribution to extreme rainfall in winter 2013–14

The role of temperature in the variability and extremes of electricity and gas demand in Great Britain

The daily relationship of electricity and gas demand with temperature in Great Britain is analysed from 1975 to 2013 and 1996 to 2013 respectively. The annual mean and annual cycle amplitude of electricity demand exhibit low frequency variability. This low frequency variability is thought to be predominantly driven by socio-economic changes rather than temperature variation. Once this variability is removed, both daily electricity and gas demand have a strong anti-correlation with temperature (r elec = −0.90 , r gas = −0.94). However these correlations are inflated by the changing demand–temperature relationship during spring and autumn. Once the annual cycles of temperature and demand are removed, the correlations are ${r}_{{\rm{elec}}}=-0.60$ and ${r}_{{\rm{gas}}}=-0.83$. Winter then has the strongest demand–temperature relationship, during which a 1 °C reduction in daily temperature typically gives a ~1% increase in daily electricity demand and a 3%–4% increase in gas demand. Extreme demand periods are assessed using detrended daily temperature observations from 1772. The 1 in 20 year peak day electricity and gas demand estimates are, respectively, 15% (range 14%–16%) and 46% (range 44%–49%) above their average winter day demand during the last decade. The risk of demand exceeding recent extreme events, such as during the winter of 2009/2010, is also quantified

How was it for you? Experiences of participatory design in the UK health service

Improving co-design methods implies that we need to understand those methods, paying attention to not only the effect of method choices on design outcomes, but also how methods affect the people involved in co-design. In this article, we explore participants' experiences from a year-long participatory health service design project to develop ‘Better Outpatient Services for Older People’. The project followed a defined method called experience-based design (EBD), which represented the state of the art in participatory service design within the UK National Health Service. A sample of participants in the project took part in semi-structured interviews reflecting on their involvement in and their feelings about the project. Our findings suggest that the EBD method that we employed was successful in establishing positive working relationships among the different groups of stakeholders (staff, patients, carers, advocates and design researchers), although conflicts remained throughout the project. Participants' experiences highlighted issues of wider relevance in such participatory design: cost versus benefit, sense of project momentum, locus of control, and assumptions about how change takes place in a complex environment. We propose tactics for dealing with these issues that inform the future development of techniques in user-centred healthcare design

Integration of professional judgement and decision-making in high-level adventure sports coaching practice

This study examined the integration of professional judgement and decision-making processes in adventure sports coaching. The study utilised a thematic analysis approach to investigate the decision-making practices of a sample of high-level adventure sports coaches over a series of sessions. Results revealed that, in order to make judgements and decisions in practice, expert coaches employ a range of practical and pedagogic management strategies to create and opportunistically use time for decision-making. These approaches include span of control and time management strategies to facilitate the decision-making process regarding risk management, venue selection, aims, objectives, session content, and differentiation of the coaching process. The implication for coaches, coach education, and accreditation is the recognition and training of the approaches that“create time” for the judgements in practice, namely“creating space to think”. The paper concludes by offering a template for a more expertise-focused progression in adventure sports coachin

Client self-assessment in community aged care: A comparative study involving older Australians and their case managers

Self-assessment of support needs is a relatively new and under-researched phenomenon in domiciliary aged care. This article outlines the results of a comparative study focusing on whether a self-assessment approach assists clients to identify support needs and the degree to which self-assessed needs differ from an assessment conducted by community care professionals. A total of 48 older people and their case managers completed a needs assessment tool. Twenty-two semi-structured interviews were used to ascertain older people’s views and preferences regarding the self-assessment process. The study suggests that while a co-assessment approach as outlined in this article has the potential to assist older people to gain a better understanding of their care needs as well as the assessment process and its ramifications, client self-assessment should be seen as part of a co-assessment process involving care professionals. Such a co-assessment process allows older people to gain a better understanding of their support needs and the wider community aged care context. The article suggests that a co-assessment process involving both clients and care professionals contains features that have the capacity to enhance domiciliary aged care

The CLIVAR C20C Project: Which components of the Asian-Australian monsoon circulation variations are forced and reproducible?

A multi-model set of atmospheric simulations forced by historical sea surface temperature (SST) or SSTs plus Greenhouse gases and aerosol forcing agents for the period of 1950–1999 is studied to identify and understand which components of the Asian–Australian monsoon (A–AM) variability are forced and reproducible. The analysis focuses on the summertime monsoon circulations, comparing model results against the observations. The priority of different components of the A–AM circulations in terms of reproducibility is evaluated. Among the subsystems of the wide A–AM, the South Asian monsoon and the Australian monsoon circulations are better reproduced than the others, indicating they are forced and well modeled. The primary driving mechanism comes from the tropical Pacific. The western North Pacific monsoon circulation is also forced and well modeled except with a slightly lower reproducibility due to its delayed response to the eastern tropical Pacific forcing. The simultaneous driving comes from the western Pacific surrounding the maritime continent region. The Indian monsoon circulation has a moderate reproducibility, partly due to its weakened connection to June–July–August SSTs in the equatorial eastern Pacific in recent decades. Among the A–AM subsystems, the East Asian summer monsoon has the lowest reproducibility and is poorly modeled. This is mainly due to the failure of specifying historical SST in capturing the zonal land-sea thermal contrast change across the East Asia. The prescribed tropical Indian Ocean SST changes partly reproduce the meridional wind change over East Asia in several models. For all the A–AM subsystem circulation indices, generally the MME is always the best except for the Indian monsoon and East Asian monsoon circulation indices